Closing in on the end

We have to be on the road Friday morning.  There’s about 20 couples from my grad class of 30+ years ago that have got together on the 3rd weekend of July ever since we graduated.  The exuberance of our weekend celebrations has changed over the years and we haven’t been nearly as regular attendees as some of my classmates but this year we’ll be there.  We missed last year but I think we were at the one prior. 

So the bus absolutely has to move Friday morning.  The weather this week has been crap for somebody painting outdoors under a hard deadline but I got it done today.  Actually I got more or less done yesterday but I really wanted to fix the graphics on the curbside and today I was able to get that done.  I did the curbside first and I got a lot better as I went along so I wanted to have another go at the curbside but I left it until last just in case I ran out of time or materials. 

I’ve also still got the bedroom window on the roadside that needs the frame painted black.  I’m not real happy with the single stage black but I don’t know if that is the PPG paint that the assholes in Yorkton sold me or the fact that it is single stage.  I discovered that the can they put the paint in is labeled for some different PPG system than the one they sold me.  That makes me suspicious that they may have sold me some bastard system that they couldn’t palm off on any real bodyshop but I suppose I’ll never know.  That’s been a real revelation during this project – the bewildering variety of chemistry sets that go into auto paint.  It shouldn’t be any surprise I guess – its big business so there are bound to be many marketing flavours but I was still surprised.  And there’s no way I saw any more than the tip of the proverbial iceberg so its hard to imagine just how many different systems must be out there.

If I get a chance later this summer I’d still like to put two more coats of clear on. Right now I figure I’ve got between 2 and 4 coats over everything.  I put extra clear on the high traffic areas around the door, around the engine access and on the forehead (where all the bugs hit).  Now I’d like to sand it with 1500 grit and then recoat everything with 2 more coats of clear.  That should last longer than we’ll be around to use the bus.

I still have to put the fender flares on but other than that I’m pretty well done putting things back together. I’d be done that too but my Phillips bit for my Makita cordless impact broke. I only had one Makita bit because I hate Phillips screws but I found another bit that would fit and then promptly broke it too. And I flat out refuse to fight with Phillips head bolts by hand so the fender flares will just have to wait until after I get back from the hardware store in Canora tomorrow.   After I get that done I’ll do a thorough pre-trip inspection. The bus has been sitting here for a long time now and there’s nothing mechanical that ever improved from sitting idle.